Political Theater

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The Republican National Committee has posted a new web ad charging Obama with a “lack of leadership” around the deficit super committee. The video weaves together clips of political pundits and Democrats describing Obama with terms such as “hands off,” “invisible,” and “not a leader,” before cutting to pictures of Obama playing basketball, golf, and football, laughing, hanging art, sipping a drink through a straw, talking on the phone with his feet up on his desk, and gazing out of an airplane window – all meant to suggest, it seems, that the president is too busy having fun to lead, particularly when it comes to getting the country on the right fiscal track.

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In his latest campaign ad, Newt Gingrich suggests he knew from the start that the deficit “super committee” would be a failure. The ad, which weaves together clips from a Republican primary debate last August, features Gingrich describing the super committee as “dumb,” “irrational,” and “phony” and sarcastically referring to the committee members as “brilliant.”